When I was growing up I never liked coffee much – my parents drank Sanka (instant coffee), and it was terrible. We didn’t drink coffee at home either. Once in a great while, Cynthia invited someone over who DID drink coffee. I blindly attempted to make them coffee, but I had no clue what I was doing.
Cynthia was diagnosed with Parkinson’s around 2003. We heard that some patients with Parkinson’s experienced benefits from drinking coffee, so I decided to pay more attention to our coffee time.
Barnie’s flavored coffees
Our friend Jack Yeazel introduced us to Barnie’s flavored coffees. We really loved these, and bought many flavors over several years. I eventually realized that I still didn’t like the coffee itself. The sweet sugary flavorings WERE addictive.
Over time, I weaned myself off of Barnie’s coffees. I learned to drink my coffee black, with sugar to tame the bitterness.
Jamaica Blue Mountain at home
Cynthia got creative and randomly bought some coffees. Most of them were OK, but one time we got some Jamaica Blue Mountain (JBM) that was really special. I could tell when I brewed it, because it smelled amazing – and it tasted just as good. That is the mark of a really good coffee.
Every time we had some of this, we literally “ooohed and aaahed” over it, and had a genuine “coffee moment”. We bought JBM coffees several more times, but none of them were that special – except for the price!
Costa Rica Tarrazu on vacation
When on vacation, I always bought coffee at a nearby grocery store. I bought some Starbucks Costa Rica Tarrazu at Publix one time, and was quite surprised. When I made the coffee, it was MUCH better than any other coffee that I recently had.
I bought the same Costa Rica Tarrazu coffee when I got back home, but it was not nearly as good. This was my first clue about what makes a really good coffee – it needs to be “freshly roasted”. Most of the coffee in grocery stores has no roast date on it. It could have been roasted between one and nine months earlier.
When you buy coffee, you should ONLY buy coffee which shows the date it was roasted. It starts to decline in flavor about one week after it is roasted. You can definitely taste the difference in the same coffee when it was one, three or six months after the roast date.
Jamaica Blue Mountain – Sundays at Caribou Coffee
Many years ago, Caribou Coffee served Jamaica Blue Mountain on Sunday afternoons. We would visit our local Caribou every weekend, and that was some great coffee! Sad to say, they stopped doing that after a few years. In addition, they closed most of the Caribou Coffee locations around Atlanta.
Amazing coffee at Vegas Hotel
Cynthia and I went to actuarial meetings several times a year. Usually the coffee was between bad and average. At a newer hotel we ordered a pot of coffee for breakfast in our room. When we had it, we were simply amazed – it tasted great, like maybe it was JBM!
We kept ordering coffee for breakfast, hoping to have the same enjoyment. But that was a random occurrence – the rest of the coffee we had at that hotel was NOT special. I imagine that one pot was made with freshly roasted coffee beans.
Home roasted coffee
One of the benefits of roasting your own coffee is that you can match your own taste preferences. Most local roasters now produce lighter roasts than my own. Cynthia and I both got much more satisfaction from my own roasts than the roasted coffee beans that we purchased.